Software on your smartphone can speed up lithium-ion battery charging by up to 6x

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

A startup in California, with the rather odd name of Qnovo, says it has developed a new way of rapidly recharging conventional lithium-ion batteries. With Qnovo’s technology, you can get six hours of phone life from just 15 minutes of charging — compared to just 1-2 hours from conventional charging. The secret, according to Qnovo, is that no two batteries are identical — and knowing exactly how much power you can pump into the battery without damaging it can significantly improve recharge times.

As you’re probably aware, lithium-ion batteries — as in, the battery in your smartphone, tablet, laptop — generally hold less charge as time goes by. There are many reasons for LIBs to lose charge and efficiency, but one of the most pesky is the creation of dendrites — mossy deposits of lithium that ooze out of cracks in the anode that form during charging (the sudden influx of ions caused by recharging causes the anode to expand and crack). These dendrites can reach out towards the electrolyte and cause short circuits, seriously reducing the battery’s capacity. [Read: How a lithium-ion battery works.]

Now, device makers already know that charging a lithium-ion battery is pretty dangerous because of dendrite formation. So, to ensure the dendrites don’t form, the amount of current flowing into the battery is reduced to a trickle. This results in longer battery life, which is good — but also significantly longer recharge times. [Read: How USB charging works, or how to avoid blowing up your smartphone.]

Qnovo closed-loop lithium-ion battery charging method

Qnovo is offering a different solution. Rather than simply reducing the charging current to the “lowest common denominator” that definitely won’t damage the battery, Qnovo has designed an intelligent feedback loop that constantly checks the battery’s status to ensure that it gets the optimal amount of current. Apparently, simply by simply sending a pulse into the battery, and then registering the voltage response, Qnovo can work out the battery’s temperature, age, and other factors that affect charging. By continually polling the battery as it charges, the current can be constantly tweaked. The Qnovo website notes that this doesn’t just help batteries of different ages, either: Even two batteries made on the same day, at the same factory, can behave significantly differently.

The end result, according to Qnovo, is somewhere between three and six times faster charging — plus your battery stays healthier for longer, apparently. Qnovo is offering two solutions: A piece of software (that runs on your phone/laptop) that improves charging speed, or a special chip that manages your device’s charging circuitry. The chip is more effective, but obviously it’s easier to get device makers to install a piece of software on a phone, rather than redesign a circuit board.

Obviously, if there’s a simple software solution that can both speed up charging and increase battery longevity, then Qnovo could be onto something big. While mobile devices are still severely restricted by total battery capacity, faster charging would certainly give mobile computing another big boost (not that it really needs one, mind you).

Qnovo says its technology should be available on “some smartphones” in 2015.

like
Louis responded I am amazed that some one able to get paid $5353 in one month
on the computer . read the article

B

U

Z

Z

3

2

.

C

O

M

Marc Guillot

Impressive if it really is up to its promises.

What about electric cars batteries ?. Most of them also use lithium-ion batteries, 6x improvement on recharging your electric car would be huge for their adoption.

Marco

Only if the charging location can handle it. Right now you can have a 40 amp fast charger from Tesla, and even splurge to get a Tesla that can take 2 of them at once, for a total of 80 amps. But a typical home (and many other locations) only can handle about 100 amps total at a time. So you see the problem with trying to charge 6 times faster. EV chargers already charge enormously fast, compared to electronic devices.

jimv1983

And electric cars still take too long to charge. Even with the Tesla superchargers it still takes 30-45 minutes to get just over 100 miles of real world range.

massau

there are just to much limits in the current capacity 80 Amps is a lot especially if it is from 230V.

the only way electrical cars could work today is by making them significantly lighter this would reduce the size of the battery and the charge times.
and 100 miles isn’t something you need every day a range except if you are a taxi driver :) or live far away from your work.

jimv1983

My round trip commute is 65 miles. For my situation I’d have to spend 30-45 minutes every other day hanging around a Tesla supercharging station and that would only work if there was on near me, which there isn’t. Having to do that either in the morning on the way to work on the way home would be very annoying.

scott

You do realize that every morning your car will be topped off with a full charge and over a 250 mile range. Its not like a gas car that you wait for the tank to be empty to refill.

massau

is that trip length one way 65miles or back and forth 130miles total?

and most people only go up to 40 to 50 km total trips so if you drive 65 miles everyday than i would suggest moving closer to you job of course i do not know where you live so i cannot see your situation.

jimv1983

It’s 65 miles round trip. Only takes about 35 minutes each way and I like the city I live in. Don’t want to move.

Zunalter

^^This

piero mazzonzelli

I think the real point is that – in cars – the battery pack is made up of thousands of small little batteries… I would not know how to charge them individually

Ivor O’Connor

Excellent. This is one of those examples of something that is totally obvious and should have been done long ago. That we look around and are surprised it hasn’t already been done. I wonder if this is one of those secrets that Tesla did not patent in the hopes of flying under the radar…

Avatar1337

You need a chip in order to process voltage control. There is no way Tesla could have done that.

Ivor O’Connor

You say:
“You need a chip in order to process voltage control. There is no way Tesla could have done that.”

The article says:
“The chip is more effective, but obviously it’s easier to get device makers to install a piece of software on a phone, rather than redesign a circuit board.”

I’m of the opinion Tesla has some very interesting technology they are keeping to themselves about battery charging.

Avatar1337

You have to be more specific. You have to say Tesla Motors, not Tesla. Tesla was a person.

Ivor O’Connor

I first thought you were being pedantic. However I suppose it is possible to get the two confused. I am indeed talking about Tesla Motors.

jimv1983

Given the context it was very clear he was talking about Tesla the company and not Tesla the person.

Avatar1337

Then you probably don’t know much about Tesla the person. He had many secret designs he didn’t share with the world, because he thought it wasn’t ready. So it was easily misunderstood.

Jeff Vahrenkamp

yeah… I won’t lie, I’m a bit skeptical about this one. I’ll believe this when it lives up to its claims.

VLSI Engineering

As an electrical engineer who’s worked with battery charging for years, I’m pretty skeptical that simply measuring the voltage impulse from a short period of constant current charging will give guaranteed information that you are not doing additional damage to the battery. The current industry method of CCCV (constant current – constant voltage) may not individually cater to each battery’s differences, but it’s fairly safe without damaging battery life. Charging much faster than that suggests they believe they can allow battery voltage/temperature to spike higher without damaging battery life…

jimv1983

If you are an electrical engineer who know a lot about battery charging then maybe you could answer my question. Wouldn’t something like this require an extremely powerful charger? Is it really possible for a 1,000mAh charger(typical output for today’s average phone chargers) to charge a 3,000mAh battery(a decent sized battery by today’s standards) as fast as this claim of 15 minutes? If a battery is 3,000mAh and the charger is 1,000mA output then shouldn’t 3 hours charge time be the best it could ever get?

I’m really confused.

massau

to be fair you have to look at the input voltage lets say the charger is 12V@1A while the battery is 4V@3Ah than the charger can charge it within 1 hour if switched power converters where used.

but if the charger voltage is the same as the battery voltage then the charger requires 3 hours to charge it. if the CCCV circuit uses a lower current than the max current the charger can deliver then there is room to improve the charge speed.

ps please do not mix up the ampere(A) and ampere*hour(Ah)

VLSI Engineering

As massau replied, mAh represents a unit of energy, so 1 mAh is 1 mA of current running for 1 hour or 3600 seconds, which in SI units is 3.6 C (coulombs).

So a 10W charger, or 5V@2A running at max all the time, could theoretically charge a 5V 3000mAh battery in 1.5hrs assuming 100% efficiency.

jimv1983

That is what I thought. So wouldn’t a 15 minute charge require a charger far more powerful than a 2A charger? It would seem to me that to charge a 3,000mAh battery in 15 minute would require a 12A charger or a higher voltage charger. Also, as you said, that is assuming 100% efficiency which of if I remember correctly is pretty unlikely.

I think my real question is regardless of software wouldn’t it require a very different charger than we typically see for smartphones?

lm_a_dope

Can this chip be integrated into the protection circut of 18650 batteries?

Ivor O’Connor

I would bet yes on this technology working on the 18650 series of cells.

jimv1983

Part of how long it takes to charge is a function of the charger it is connected to. The same phone will charge faster with higher capacity chargers. I’m really curious how a phone with a battery of like 3,000mAh can charge in 15 minutes from a 1,000mAh charger. To charge 3,000mAh in 15 minutes I would expect it would need a charger of at least 12A. How can a phone ever pull in more power than the charger is putting out?

Storris

So mind-jarringly simple and brilliant.

zn

Excelllllennnntttt.

AdamRadzik22

If this is legit, and if that startup can be the first ones to bring this to the market (which is a big “IF”), they they are on the precipice of an absolute gold mine. How many people wouldn’t pay, what, $10, $20…$30 for a one-time fee of being able to charge their phone quickly?

However, IF this is legit, I’m sure they’ll get a buyout offer from Google, Apple, Samsung or Microsoft that will likely be irresistible to any human.

good news. happy to know that charging time is going to reduce again. but recently I read somewhere else that we can charge the mobile in just 30 seconds. In that case, is the charging time increased ? ha ha

Mark Seibert

Prove it, I call BS, quick charge means higher current, higher current means higher heat, higher heat means shorter life. I am open to this working but show me the data on 100 random batteries charged at this rate with out a reduced life time or something similar.

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.